No Wonder the Magi

No wonder the magi watched the skies.This is the time of year when all the heavenly bodies seem to dazzle with chilly brilliance in their indigo field of space.

Here in the woodlands part of the country, the sky seems to open downward with the falling leaves.Not only does the dark come sooner, faster, longer, but small twinkling lights peep from beneath the highest branches of the woods behind my home.

What wonders must have shown themselves in ancient times, centuries before anyone dreamed that a satellite camera might show the earth covered by an Indra’s net of human-made lights.Tonight from the orbiting space station, astronauts can see a grand conjunction of the Earth, Jupiter and Venus.The sun has just completed another annual analemma, a sort of ourobouran eternal dance through the sky.

As a child, I could not resist the lure of the starry vault, spending long moments imagining that my gaze could lift me from terra firma up and into the embrace of the imperishable stars.The ancient Egyptians thought of those stars as each representing an akhu, a soul which had ascended into the sky forever.And what better place to spend eternity than to be embedded in the lapis-blue body of Nut, gazing in wonder at her earth-lover Geb?

Holli Emore is Executive Director of Cherry Hill Seminary, the premiere educational resource for Pagan and other nature-based religions (www.cherryhillseminary.org), founder of Osireion (www.osireion.com), editor/writer for Wild Garden: Pagans in the Growing Interfaith Landscape at Patheos.com, and serves on the board of directors for Interfaith Partners of S.C. (interfaithpartnersofsc.org). She is co-founder of the original Pagan Round Table, www.paganroundtable.org, and author of "Pool of Lotus," available in print, or for Kindle or Nook, at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/holli1032